LIKE HIS IDOL, the pioneering gangsta rapper Tupac Shakur, the Punjabi rapper and politician Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu—better known as Sidhu Moose Wala—was shot dead in the front seat of his car. On 29 May, Sidhu left his home in the village of Moosa, in Punjab’s Mansa district, driving a Mahindra Thar SUV. A day earlier, the Punjab government had reduced the number of security personnel assigned to the 28-year-old from four to two, though none of them were with him when he was killed. When he arrived at Jawaharke, a village on the outskirts of Mansa, unknown assailants surrounded the car and opened fire with automatic weapons. According to two others in the car, Sidhu fired back with a pistol but could not fend off the assassins. Around two dozen bullets hit his head, legs, abdomen and chest, entering his lungs and his liver. He died on the spot.
Sidhu had foreshadowed his own death—or so his fans claimed. They were quick to note that the date of his murder, 29 May, echoed the title of one of his most famous songs, “295.” They noted that, in another song, eerily titled “The Last Ride,” Sidhu had sung, “Ho chobbar de chehre utte noor dasda/ Ni, ehda uthuga jawani’ch janaza mithiye”—That glow on the young man’s face says he will be laid to rest in his youth. His latest album, Moosetape, contained several references to dying young and the constant threat of being gunned down. These seemingly symbolic coincidences and a dramatic shooting added a halo of greatness around Sidhu, bolstering his legacy as an icon.
He was given a hero’s farewell. His last rites were carried out in his family’s vast fields in Moosa. Thousands gathered outside his newly built mansion for the antim ardas—the final prayer. Sidhu’s father wrapped a turban around his son’s head and, in keeping with an old ritual, adorned it with a groom’s headdress. As countless television and smartphone cameras recorded, Sidhu’s mortal remains were taken for cremation on his favourite HMT 5911 tractor, with his parents riding alongside. His mother stared motionless at her son, her head resting on his coffin. Tears streaming down his face, his father took off his turban—a striking gesture for a Sikh man—and offered it to the crowd.
At the funeral, young men held up posters with slogans such as “We will protect your legacy at all costs” and his catchphrase, “Dil da ni mada, Sidhu Moose Wala”—Not bad at heart, that Sidhu Moose Wala. They delivered breathless paeans in front of the media, praising Sidhu for his down-to-earth demeanour and his “realistic” portrayal of the Punjabi ethos.
Within hours of Sidhu’s death, Twitter and Instagram were crowded with celebrity tributes. The Canadian rapper Drake posted a condolence message and at a concert in Toronto, on 28 July, he wore a t-shirt commemorating Sidhu’s life. The UKbased rapper Stefflon Don, who had worked with Sidhu on various hit songs, shared photos of the two of them. Various Indian celebrities paid tributes: the singer and actor Diljit Dosanjh, the cricketer Shikhar Dhawan and the actors Anil Kapoor, Ajay Devgn and Ranveer Singh, among others. The Canadian comedian Lilly Singh wrote that Sidhu’s “revolutionary” music had made her and other Punjabis “feel seen.” In June, Dosanjh dedicated a sold-out concert in Vancouver to Sidhu.
His fans—and they are mostly young—began running an online campaign for “#JusticeForSidhuMoosewala,” with thousands of tweets every day demanding that his killers be brought to account. Sidhu’s YouTube subscribers touched a whopping 15.9 million—Prime Minister Narendra Modi has 11.8 million. Fans tattooed his image on their arms and plastered their SUVs with vinyl stickers paying tribute. Many created fan art depicting Sidhu with Shakur or Nipsey Hussle, another young Black rapper who was gunned down, smiling down from heaven. Months after his death, his social-media pages featured an endless stream of comments saying, “Legends Never Die.”
Punjabi intellectuals who had earlier derided Sidhu for promoting violence and gun culture began praising him as a “Punjabi Putt”—a son of Punjab. A jathedar of the Sri Patna Sahib Takht, one of the five Sikh temporal seats, said he was a “true Sikh” as he always wore a turban. Some in Punjab compared Sidhu to folk heroes known for their anti-establishment thinking, such as the romantic icon Mirza and Dulla Bhatti, who had led a peasant revolt against the Mughal emperor Akbar.
Sidhu’s murder ignited a political row in Punjab, where the Aam Aadmi Party had come to power just a few months earlier. In late 2021, Sidhu had joined the Congress, which then ruled the state. In the assembly election this year, he contested the Mansa seat for the party, losing to the AAP candidate by over sixty thousand votes. On 27 May this year, the AAP government announced a cut in the security cover of 424 prominent personalities, including politicians, retired police officers and religious leaders. The government widely publicised this move, calling it a step towards ending VIP culture. Many AAP leaders also shared on social media the names of the 424 people affected. Sidhu’s death prompted his fans to condemn the AAP government. Opposition parties, especially the Congress, held the government responsible for the murder.
It soon became clear that Sidhu’s killing was linked to gang warfare. In a Facebook post on the day of the murder, the Canada-based gangster Goldy Brar claimed responsibility, calling it retaliation for the August 2021 killing of Vikramjit Middhukhera, a youth leader of the Shiromani Akali Dal—a prominent political party in the state. Middhukhera had been close to Lawrence Bishnoi, the leader of Brar’s gang. Sidhu’s manager, Shagan Preet Singh, who is currently believed to be in Australia, had been named by the police as the main conspirator behind Middhukhera’s murder. Brar claimed that Sidhu had been part of the conspiracy and had helped Shagan flee the country. Some speculated that the Bishnoi gang had killed Sidhu because he was associated with a rival gang, started by the former kabaddi player Davinder Bambiha, who was killed by the police in 2016. In 2020, Sidhu had collaborated with the singer Amrit Mann to produce a song titled “Bambiha Bole,” believed to be a paean to the slain gangster. “Moosewala provoked us through his lyrics and eulogised. “He dared us to attack him in the open.”
